It is a frequent necessity in the packaging industry to regroup articles and/or sets of articles, bundles, or the like, which arrive in a plurality of parallel lanes, to an arrangement that is appropriate and required for the subsequent processing steps. For instance, it may be necessary to reduce bundle streams arriving in n parallel rows to (n−1) or (n−2) rows of bundle streams for further processing.
According to the prior known art, it is necessary in this context to create spaces in each instance between the individual bundles on the continuing transport lane in order to accommodate the bundles from the lane to be broken up in these spaces between the bundles of the transport lane. If two lanes are to be merged to one single lane, for example, it is necessary to form a space in each instance between consecutive bundles in the transport lane, with each space being at least as long as one bundle. After the bundles have been divided and accordingly the spaces have been formed, it is possible to push always one bundle from the lane to be broken up into a space between consecutive bundles of the continuing transport lane. In this solution, an appropriate handling device or gripping device handles and shifts always only one bundle a time. The output of such a device is accordingly low. It is possible to design the dividing process such that it is continuous.
It is furthermore known from the prior art that the bundles arriving in a stream are divided into so-called bundle groups. A specified number of bundles is then divided off as a bundle group. The bundle group is followed by an appropriate space, with the length of the space corresponding to at least the length of the bundle group. In this way a space is formed in each instance between two consecutive bundle groups, with the space having at least the length of one bundle group in transport direction. After the bundle groups have been divided and accordingly after the spaces have been formed, it is possible to push always one bundle group from the lane to be broken up into a space between consecutive bundle groups of the continuing transport lane. In this solution, an appropriate handling device or gripping device in each instance handles and shifts a bundle group, that is to say that a plurality of bundles is always divided up, and a space is produced between the bundle groups, with the space being appropriately dimensioned so that it is possible to shift a bundle group with the same number of bundles from the lane to be broken up into the transport lane. This is not a continuous, but rather a pulsating dividing process.